Aoife?

[clairemiss79]

I love the name Aoife but living in England I'm worried that it will be constantly mis-pronounced. Does anyone know any aoifes?

Its not something which has happened to the other 2 dds one who has a name ive never come across another person called.

No there are no guarentee's but if you choose an Irish name living in England from my exprience most people will not know how to pronounce it and your child will have to correct people. Only DD1 has rhis, the other 2 don't.

And its virtually everyone not just club employees or receptionists , i used them as an example of when it happens. Hospital, doctors, many of the teachers she has had, i could go on an on really. Its not anything to do with peoples intelligence regardless of their occupation, they just cant pronounce the name. They will have a go then ask is that correct.

I wouldn't worry about your daughter's discomfort with her name right now, ILoveCoreyHaim. She's at a tricky age where she doesn't want to be different. My name is Irish and the correct spelling in Irish has a fada in it but growing up most people didn't use the fada. At school some teachers put in the fada and some didn't. For some reason it really upset me when I was at that 'tween' age when people put the fada on my name. It really made me feel awkward and different and I wished I had a name with a simple spelling, no idea why!

Now I love my name and even though I live abroad (so it happens a lot!) it doesn't bother me when people misspell or mispronounce it. I love my name. So I think your DD will grow out of her awkwardness about her name and embrace it as she gets older, especially as Niamh is getting more popular now anyway.

I love the name Aoife, by the way, OP. It's on my shortlist, partly because I want an Irish name but as my DC will be growing up abroad I want them to have the option to use an English version of their names (Eve / Eva in this case) if they want to at any point. My DS has an Irish name that has a well-known Anglicized version.

I love the name, but OH won't let me use it as apparently it's an elephants name.... 'E for elephant' 'eefa elephant'.

Plus, I come across a lot of Irish women in community who say they would never use an Irish name outside of Ireland due to mis pronunciation. People can't seem to get names as basic as Niamh

What made it worse Liz is she startee senior school and there is a girl in here house block using the American spelling - Neve. Hopefully she grows to like it although she has hated it since she was 7 so im not so sure.

It's a pretty name but I wouldn't use iti if you live outside Ireland. I would be really cheesed off going through life with a name no-one can pronounce.

There are lots of other pretty names to choose from that won't give your dd that headache

Just to re-iterate, I'm perfectly happy going through life with an interesting name that some people don't know how to say or spell.

I don't know, wouldn't life be a bit boring if everything was exactly as expected, and nothing was out of the ordinary?

I knew a Niamh who pronounced it Ny Am Uh herself, always made me giggle. That was a lot of years ago now though.

There are too many of them. I prefer Eva.

Lol at not being able to tell the difference between eefer and eefa

Is eefer vs eefa, being a geordie i would pronounce eefer eefa anyway. Anything with er is pronounced a anyway here.

Baker - Bake a
Batter - bat ta
Fish monger - fish mon ga

Oops dont know where Is came from. Should have said

Re eefer vs eefa

The pro-nounciation of Niamh i hear the most often and which really annoys me is

Nee - amph

Or Ni - amph

I know these type of names are lovely, but I think they're better kept to the country of origin

So- only english names allowed in England then? no french, chinese, polish, romanian, indian names? People shouldnt name their child for their heritage or give family names because some people will take a few minutes to get the pronunciation right?

math loving your very informative posts on this thread.

Ok edu-wotsit (I forgot your name). Can you further explain the difference between Eefa and Eefer? Because in my 'shires', southern England accent they sound exactly the same. Which accent should I say them in to make them sound different?

An Irish one.

English people often call me eefer which I hate
oops! that's how I thought it was pronounced!
Can't really tell much difference between Eefa and Eefer

It will get mispronounced and misspelt constantly. Call her something else if that will annoy you (It would drive me mad if it was me)

When I first heard the name pronounced by an Irish person (it was the mother of the named girl), it sounded like "ether", which I thought was a little trippy. In my mind, I put her in the guardian-reading box.

I had no idea it was spelt "Aoife" or it was an Irish name.

Doctors' receptionists and club employees are not noted for their manners or intelligence.
So you must be rude and thick if you can't pronounce names that are unfamiliar to you, don't originate in this country, and can't be sounded out phonetically?

I can't really hear the difference between eefer and eefa, so it's probably for the best that DD didn't end up as an Aoife.

I would pronounce it ee-fa/ee-fer (another one to whom that sounds exactly the same), but I only know that because I know an Aoife and that's how she pronounces it.

Most people, though, confronted with a name or word they don't know, will have a stab at pronouncing it as best they can. Usually it comes out phonetically.

Thats what happens Becca, they will look at it written down, look up, look at tge paper again and go Nyamph is it. This is when dd rolls her eyes as she' had it all her life and it annoys the hell out of her. It no ones fault as they read it out as its written and i wouldn't expect them to know how to say it as it looks totally different. I just didnt think it would be quite as bad as it is when i named her. It is literally almost everyone and over 12 years (well from her being 7 when she noticed and said she hated her name). Up till she was 7ish i would correct people.

Then at xmas in primary all the cards from school are wrong as well, as people know she is Niamh she gets cards with Neave or Neve or Neeve on.

During the times we lived in England as a schoolgirl I went to Catholic schools. There were a lot of Irish, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian names floating around, as well as a few of the lesser known saints names. It did give a good grounding in pronunciations.
and a damn good mix of food at friends homes